Party time

[Scientist]

Right guys before this begins please keep it to a discussion to relative merits and not a slanging match

I was pondering after many discussions with several in guild what the "perfect" instance party would be. I settled on the following:

1) Warrior - obviously, very effective main tank

2) Preist - Again best healing available and able to sheild/res

3) Shaman - excellent support with totems and healing abilities, also able to res and self res every 40mins (with talents)

4) Mage - I personally like mages for AoE and sheep for CC, also very good DPS. Providing main tank is efficient should have good protection.

5) Now this is where it gets funky - I was thinking that this 5th members class doesnt really matter as long as they do sufficient DPS so Hunter/Lock/Rogue

Sensible discussion welcome

[Allen]

Would agree, but I would also say Druid offer a pretty good support like a Shaman, maybe not as good, but still OK (they can heal, help tank, and provide DPS).

[Scientist]

Ah cheers Allen - Completely forgot druids who are a very versitile addition to a party

[Kaine (AoD)]

IMHO (although alot will dis agree) Locks are very good in instances... never playing one in my life (bad past time with pet based toons) i dont know all the spells they get but i do know that they can pull off some nice DPS, create mana stones, give one person self res! (WINNER) and summon others always handy to keep a lock in back up some times

[Scientist]

The only thing stopping Lock's from being great at the moment is the farcical shard system IMO, other than that I would agree with what your saying

[ravenblood]

Thats a tricky subject , but for a good and balanced party , there must a tank and a healer , the other 3 spots are not that mandatory , so it depends on the instance.

Mage - Huge dps , but mana dependent , good CC ( only works on humanoids and beast , i think) , almost no trouble with aggro managment.

Shammy - Totems , limited healing capability , off-tank , self-rez , good cloth protectors , good dps

Druid - They have the best raw potential for healing, combat rez , off-tank in bear form , scout in cat form , jack of all trades.

Hunter - Great dps , cc capability against all mobs (except raid boss , and some elementals) , off-tank ( pet and hunter) for a limited time , excelent aggro mangment , the best cloth protector

Rogues - Huge dps , scout capabilities , CC against humanoids , low armor prevents the use of rogues for off-tanking

Locks - Good dps , cc with seduce , off-tanking with VW , most of their damage is done with dots so they usually dont pick much aggro , rez and healing with shards.


But the most important is to take good team players , because you can have the the most perfect team , but if they dont know their job , you are dead meat.

Just my 2 cents

[Allen]

Very good points and very true Ravenblood. One point about Mages though, or from what I see (and do of course), when I get aggro on me and others are also hitting the mob trying to take them off me, a simple Frost Nova (freezing them in place) and then running causes them to lose you and turn to attack those nearby.

Doesn't always work, but is one way of dealing with it. Or Polymorphing if they're a viable target.

[TiG]

High level instances for me it has to be
Warrior, 2 shaman, Priest, Mage.

Shaman can tank if needed, can gain aggro real easy with earth shock, can do AOE with flame nova, chain lightning, Mage for Poly, Sheer DPS + int for all, Priest for +stam for all, healing etc. Warrior for tanking.

Again this is only for discussion, but hunters while providing some of the highest dps in the game for long periods, cannot do huge burst dps imo. Have fairly poor health, due to kit they are provided focusing on +AGIL, where as cloth wearers get +stam/+int quite a lot.

Again not convinced by warlocks, scubus has its uses as does paranoia, but not in my best 5 group.

Why not druid, well i'm not convinced by what i've seen, armour is poor in non bear form, and in bear form, they seem to lose some of the key abilities. Has the best buff in the game, but with +int/+stam from the mage/priest and 2 shaman laying totems, one +str, one -dmg, one + agil, one grounding totem etc. I believe that outweighs the Motw factor.

Strange but i don't rate rogues in instances one bit. Maybe down to lack of AOE and/or support buffs and debuffs to enemies warrior has.

Plus 3 healers..... That for me outweighs, rogue/warlock/hunter/druid for the 5th slot imo.

Nice thread tho velan

TiG

[ravenblood]

As for the hunter poor health , i have to say , most hunters go for AGI/STA gear , ( the average lvl 60 hunter has 3000 hp and 2600 ac and raw 150 dps) and we have a pet ( tank pet has about 3800 ac , and 3600 hp and 50 dps) , so in normal conditions the hunter offers to the party one mini tank and a dps dealer , but the best thing a hunter can offer is the off-tank capability , ex :

5 mobs - the hunter pulls the linked mobs one is trapped , one or two for the tank , one for the pet , if the tank cant hold the second one , we hold the bastard , but only for a small period of time ( about 20sec ) , if we pull much aggro just FD and the agro is shiffted.

ofc , this is in optimal condictions , but in the instances that i have done so far ( ST is the higher one) , i have done that role with sucess.

[Butcher]

Depends on the instance. For single target DPS though rogues beat all. They don't shine so much as a mage in a 5 man group as they lack versitility. The mage brings a lot more to the table than just DPS. In larger raid groups rogues are very useful.

Oh yeah mages get mana stones, locks get health stones. Mage stones are not tradable though.

[Father-Time]

Tank and Healer - Necessity!

Rest need to be good group members who know how to play their characters.

I would always take a Mage for shear DPS and free sustanance

Warlocks have curses for every occasion, rogues have a high speed attack rate, interupts casters better than any other, similar to druid feral form, druids tank/heal, shaman tank/heal, hunter always usefull.......

I gotta be honest other than tank and healer it has to be based on player i think I would rather take a good character (Any type) rather than a bad character who deosnt know there role. Bet we have all been in instances with bad priests/tanks.

One thing that most of us dont do, is check what other characters are capable of, thos that think for instance work Warlocks arent a desirable addition should check out exactly what a Warlock can do, (Using that as an example as i am a "Lock" But i dont really know the strengts of a shaman just beginning to see the versatility of a druid, and know the DPS of a good mage

So much to learn !!!

[ERU]

Rogues - Huge dps , scout capabilities , CC against humanoids , low armor prevents the use of rogues for off-tanking

This is a bit incorrect. Yes tyhey have low armour but .... with lots of agility they can dodge ALOT of the attacks. There are also talents that i have on full that will make this almost a certainly for 15 secs type cooldowns. I can tank anything i have met in the game for 30secs with x2 Evasions so far and 30secs is a bloody long time in an instance. I can also loose aggro at my will with feint.
The abilty to Sap is really helpful too. I was in BRD the other night with me and another Rogue and no tank at all - not even a viod. We managed to Sap x2 humaniods at the same time and get very far in together

[Mblaster]

You got there before me Eru As well the the dodge chance bonus with evasion (mine goes up to about 70% dodge chance) rogues can off tank by stun locking, although this only works while no-one else is attacking that enemy.

A perfect group for an instance depends a lot on what instance it is. But in general here's my view:

Warrior - Tank!

Priest - Best healer in the game.

Driud - This was a hard choice between shaman and driud but I went for driud because they can do everything, bad pull? driud can spam some heals then switch to bear when he gets aggro and be the off tank, or if someone dies mid battle the combat res can save the group a lot of time.

Mage - High DPS, crowd control, and the main reason to take a mage, AoE spells!

Rogue - Huge single target DPS, crowd control, scouting, stun locking.

There it is, although when I look back I see I'm missing any kind of wipe recovery, but with that group you have wipe protection

If I was taking a group to LBRS I would drop the mage in favour of a shaman, only part where a mage shines in LBRS is the spider area, killing off the little ones, and that's not to hard one you know what your up against.

[madocks]

It all depends on the instance tbh - cant just have an ideal 5 man group

BRD = Shammy deffo (+60 Fire resistance)

Maraudon = Hunter (+60 nature dmg) Shaman (+60) = 120 nature resistance

Dire Maul / BRD = lots of locks - rogue

A group would have to be selected on the task in hand.

[ERU]

I think it's also worth mentioning that the player accounts for ALOT more than the class too.

[madocks]

I think it's also worth mentioning that the player accounts for ALOT more than the class too.

And theyre set-up of talents............. A pvp warrior / Dmg taking warrior